Blaze hits hospital

Visitors were asked to stay away from Wellington Regional Hospital for 24 hours after a fire early yesterday.

Three upper floors of the hospital’s main tower block were significantly damaged by water after a fire broke out in a switchboard on the top level.

Capital & Coast District Health Board asked friends and family of patients to avoid visiting while the cleanup was under way.

Four patients were moved because of leaks and lifts in the building were affected. No one was hurt.

Fire and Emergency assistant area commander Michael Dombroski said an alarm was set off at 2am after a blaze erupted in the hospital’s plant room on the eighth floor.

Eleven fire crews headed to the hospital but Dombroski said the fire was contained by the internal sprinkler system and partially extinguished by the time the first crews arrived.

Firefighters, carrying equipment up eight floors to reach the burning room, put the fire out but a massive salvage operation followed after significant amounts of water cascaded down into the lower levels of the block.

“There’s a significant amount of water damage which decreased as you went down,” Dombroski said. “It even went down to level one where there was a puddle. From eight, seven, six [the damage is] quite significant.”

The blaze had been contained to a single switchboard about the size of a door, but the rest of the floor also has serious smoke damage.

The hospital’s director of provider services, Joy Farley, said the cause of the blaze was being investigated but was thought to be electrical.

“A team will remain on site to assess and address any further damage over the next 24 hours,” said Farley.

“Our operations are expected to function as per normal.”